


(I Love You Too Much To) Walk Away

by blue_sweater



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bad Relationship, Depression, Domestic Violence, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Rape, Mentions of Suicide, Past Rape/Non-con, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, but somehow still a good relationship, emotionally crippled, lots of triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 12:57:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2192655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_sweater/pseuds/blue_sweater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had to feel love like a knife in the gut to feel it at all, and until Bucky there had never been anyone who made her feel this way. He was bad for her, and she knew it, but she knew she’d never love anyone as much as she loved him.</p>
<p>(Darcy has a traumatic past that might even level with Bucky's, and she doesn't know the difference between love and hate. He does, though. He loves her and he hates himself.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	(I Love You Too Much To) Walk Away

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: domestic abuse/violence/mentions of past rape/mentions of suicide/mentions of attempted suicide/family problems/self-worth problems/bad relationships.
> 
> this is fucking weird and dark shit I have never been here before, please be kind and please don't read if you are at all affected by mentions of rape, suicide or self-hate, or heavy themes of domestic violence/abuse.  
> lyrics taken from Love the Way You Lie cause I'm a big dumb idiot.

_I know we said things, did things that we didn't mean_   
_And we fall back into the same patterns, same routine_   
_But your temper's just as bad as mine is, you're the same as me_   
_When it comes to love, you're just as blinded_   
_Baby, please come back…_

* * *

She knew his damage. Knew it from the very beginning, knew what he’d been through and knew that he was different. He doesn’t feel things the same way others do, he’s got a tolerance for pain so high that it barely registers anything. And maybe that’s why he liked her so much, because she didn’t treat him like a broken thing.

And he didn’t treat her like a porcelain doll either, which was good. At least, she always thinks so, until she wakes up with bruises everywhere and he’s kissing each single one, apologising as soon as her eyes have opened, telling her that he didn’t mean to and he won’t do it again. Which is what he said last time, and the time before. But she stays, because leaving – well, she doesn’t want to. Despite everything, she’s happier with him. They have their moments. It’s worth it.

When they have sex - fuck, make love, whatever - it's not like she ever remembered it being. For him, it's not just him trying to get off. Sometimes it's because he can't sleep or he's stressed, or he feels like he's losing his grip on reality and she brings him back. But other times it's because he just wants it. Wants to make her feel good. And it feels good for her. It feels good to have someone want her without wanting to kill her, and it's taken a while but she's stopped asking him to choke her in bed or pull her hair and now she can finish without him hurting her at all. It's so new. She feels so tired afterwards. 

( _He tried explaining to her that he doesn't want to hurt her, and it's wrong, and the people you love don't hurt you like that. He does it because he can't help it but he's trying so hard to be better, it's all so messed up but he needs her here with him..._ )

And Steve thinks she’s God’s gift to the world when he saw how much progress Bucky was making. He had this stupid grin on his face when he told her that Bucky hadn’t relapsed in over a year and he thought she’s the reason why, reckons that she’s helped him to get better. Darcy smiled and nodded, but didn’t mention all the times he had relapsed at home and all the time she had to lock herself in the bathroom when he woke from a particularly bad nightmare. She would wait until he was mostly dormant before going over to him and gently easing him back to reality, til he woke up again, and he’d fall apart in her arms and cry and cry.

She knew that their relationship wasn’t like most relationships. She knew that these relationships – the ones where you push each other around and break things and scream – weren’t normal. It’s not like she went looking for assholes, but being a foster kid, always moving around, losing everyone she had ever loved – Darcy had learned at a young age to shut her emotions down and keep the pain away. And in her relationships, she couldn’t be normal. She had to feel love like a knife in the gut to feel it at all, and until Bucky there had never been anyone who made her feel this way. He was bad for her, and she knew it, but she knew she’d never love anyone as much as she loved him.

And she knew that he loved her, in a roundabout way. He said it a lot when he was apologising. Like her, he knew this was wrong. He’d gotten enough of his memory back that he recognised how poisonous and damaging their relationship was, but seventy years of torture does awful things to a person and Bucky was especially messed up. He was either quiet and careful with no emotion at all, or explosive and violent with every emotion amplified to the thousandth degree. And there was no in between.

( _His therapist said that he’d get back to normal at some stage, that he’d start feeling emotions on a simpler scale and get them back under control with time, that they wouldn't always be a whirlwind like they are now. They would settle. He didn’t tell his therapist about what he did to Darcy_.)

Some days they were fine, they would talk and kiss like a normal couple, and she’d curl into his side on the couch and steal food off his plate and smile. And some days they weren’t fine at all, and they would be screaming at each other, throwing things, pushing each other. After it quietened down he might try to apologise but Darcy would hiss at him to _stop touching_ her and leave her alone, and he would get angry all over again.

Until they lay down next to each other in their bed, and maybe she would roll over to wrap her arm around him or he would brush his fingertips down her shoulderblade like he was asking for permission, and they’d have slow, starved sex where he would bury himself so deep inside of her and hold her so tightly she was sure she would break.

( _But he never hurt her when he was in bed. He didn’t hit her because he loved her. He loved her. He hit her. They were different. He was fucked up_. _But she was too because sometimes she would ask him to hit her and get upset when he didn't because she needed it god dammit baby please -_ )

One night she had been out at drinks after work, and when she got home Bucky demanded to know the name of the guy she had been talking to. Darcy told him it wasn’t his business and why, was he jealous? Bucky said it was his fucking business and he wasn’t fucking around, only I’m allowed to look at you like that –

You don’t _own_ me. I can look after myself.

You couldn’t look after a fucking _pot plant_ , let alone –

Get out of my _face_.

What the _fuck_ is your problem?

You’re my fucking problem _don’t fucking touch me_ I hate you I hate you I hate you –

( _He didn’t mean to hit her. Saying that his hand slipped is so wrong, but sometimes the messages his brain sent to his arm didn’t quite compute and the difference between wanting and doing was so miniscule. His arm didn’t recognise the difference between desire and demand and would act on whatever pulses it received. The broken part of his mind told him that she's a threat and she needed to be subdued and his arm snapped out before he could stop it._ )

She remembered seeing blood on her hand and his wide blue eyes before she woke up in hospital with a doctor and a policeman, one telling her that she had a concussion and the other asking if she wanted to press charges.

No, she didn’t.

"Are you sure? Ma’m, I could –"

No, she’s sure. Please let her be, she’s feeling tired.

The doctor asked her if she wanted to talk to the man outside, he said his name was James and he was a friend. Darcy shook her head. She was really tired. Tell him maybe tomorrow.

She stayed in hospital for three days and took lots of medication to sleep. James sent her flowers. 

( _He didn't know if she even liked flowers but he sent her soft blue and purple flowers and spent hours wondering anxiously if she loved them or hated them_.)

She loved them. They smelled beautiful and perfectly unlike anything she had ever known. Nobody had ever sent her flowers in hospital before.

On the third day Steve turned up.

“What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Did my doctor say you could be here?”

“I – no, but I just wanted –”

“Leave me alone, Rogers. I’m tired.”

Steve frowned and Darcy turned over, turning away from him.

“Darcy, Bucky wanted me to make sure that you’re okay. He said the doctors won’t let him in. He – he said that he relapsed.”

Darcy laughed. “He didn’t _relapse_.”

“Are you sure? If you’ve never seen it before, maybe –”

“I have seen it before.”

That obviously raised more questions for Steve but Darcy was done talking.

He came back the next day and asked her how she was going.

“They won’t let me stay here much longer,” was her reply.

Steve sat down on the ever-vacant visitor chair. “What did Bucky do?”

Darcy knows that he knows, but she tries for subtlety anyway. “He had a moment. His arm malfunctioned, I think. I just needed some time away to get my shit together. It’s okay. We're okay."

Steve’s eyes are soft and watery and she wants to hold him and tell him that it’s okay.

“Darcy, if he’s – if he’s hurting you –”

“Honestly, Steve, not that it’s any of your fucking business, but if it was, what would you do?” she asked outright, staring him right in the eye. “You care more about him than you do about me, and if I left him now he’d go right back to where he was. Neither of us want that.”

Steve was frozen. “The Bucky I know would never hit a girl –”

“He’s not _the Bucky you know_ ,” she interrupted.

The Captain reached to take her hand but Darcy pulled hers away. His eye flinched.

_(She didn't like being touched by strangers and Bucky would glare at anyone who came to close to her. She told him that he was the only person allowed to touch her and it was the first time she had ever given permission to anybody and he had kissed her and told her he would take care of her.)_

And then Steve asked the question.

“What happened to you?”

“His arm misfired, I told you –”

“No, not Bucky. Before. What happened? Why are you like this?”

Darcy’s thrown by it. She wasn’t expecting it. Steve’s remarkably observant. She guessed it was from all those years of being a sick scrawny bastard who had to keep both eyes open to survive. She wasn’t sure what gave it away.

She raised an eyebrow. “You want me to tell you about my mother who killed herself, or my father who sexually assaulted me? Or maybe my foster brother who tried to strangle me when I was nine. Or the time I got date raped in college, and someone recorded it. Or when I tried to kill myself and they pumped my stomach and made me stay in hospital for three months."

Steve looked like he was about to be sick.

“Bucky doesn’t know about all that.”

( _When Bucky eventually finds out about everything, he feels like someone has slapped him. She loves him because she thinks love and hate are the same thing and she thinks that the person who loves you most is supposed to hurt you and he’s been hurting her so much, so much, he’s left her bleeding and bruised so many times and she thinks that this is love.._.)

“He thinks that I’m staying with him because I’m a good person, when the truth is that before I met Bucky, I had almost forgotten what it was to feel. So I don’t care if he hits me. At this stage, it feels the same as love. It’s an emotion. It’s something. I’m still alive and Bucky’s helping me stay that way, and I do the same for him.”

“But – but you don’t hit him. You don’t hurt him –”

“No, he gets hurt bad enough at his day job. He doesn’t need me for that. He needs me to be there so he can practice his own emotions til he’s back to normal. And maybe one day I’ll walk away, but only when I stop feeling something.”

Steve looked really sick now. “Darce – it’s not worth it. It’s not worth you getting hurt.”

Darcy felt like hitting Steve, now. “You don’t get it,” she said firmly. “You ain’t never been so numb you’d do anything to feel something. And Bucky – he loves me, more genuinely than anyone ever has. And I’m grateful for that, because without him I’m nothing. I’d have killed myself properly by now if not for him.”

It was better to have bruises to show for your love than no love at all, she figured, and she could see Steve’s mind whirring, trying to make sense of it, trying to understand how she could possibly love a man who hurt her like that –

She might be blind when it came to Bucky, but Steve was blind when it came to hurt. He knew what it was like to lose someone else, but not to lose yourself.

Darcy left hospital the next day, and when Bucky got home from work and found her asleep in his bed he crawled in next to her and told her that Tony was going to fix his arm and he had ordered a new TV for the one he broke and he was going to pay the hospital bills and he was sorry, he was sorry, he was sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry –

( _He had never been more sorry and he had never meant to hurt her and she has to know it she has to believe him she can't leave him please don't leave..._ )

She put her finger to his lips and he kissed the corner of the gauze bandage on her head. Darcy didn’t need his promises because she loved him and she’d rather be hurting and in love than numb and feeling nothing at all. And she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone. 


End file.
